Inspiration
Take-away: When you have the vision, there will be a way. When you have the intention, you will be assisted. When you show gratitude, you will be given more.
Vision
Fatima al-Fihri was known to start the first university in the world. She chose to use her inheritance on this project. Her vision to expand the mosque was furthered as more great ideas came together to offer classes and provide certificates upon completion of studies. The location became a hot spot of scholarship, which became the Al-Qarawiyyin University. This university is still running today.
Mission
Moving Forward
If you follow the growth of Islam in America, you’ll find many immigrant communities establishing mosques. Then came the shops (halaal meats, clothing, and goods), which we are still improving as business owners begin new endeavors daily. After that came the schools, which could range from cubicles in an old factory, to trailers on a field, to proper school buildings. We are now in a time when Muslims are opening their own universities, hospitals, counseling, and community centers.
Good Tree Roots is following suit, offering a community what it needs at the level it has reached, thanks to the sacrifices and hard work of previous generations.
Take away: We are born in our time for a reason. Our every experience leads us to where we need to be.
Community
Take away: A community is only as strong as its individuals.
Belonging
Everyone needs a place they belong. It’s not about fitting in or finding your people. It’s about being safe, seen, welcomed so you can be confident, silly, vulnerable, and honored.
There’s a need to counter loneliness and to build community. We want to offer a space where our patrons will want to keep coming back out of excitement and for relaxation.
Here, we want to start with every individual and strengthen their relationships. By building strong families, we can better lead our communities, and in turn readily contribute to the community.
What we're about
Support
Over 150 books have been published in 2024 by Muslim authors. To keep up and to promote and share these books, what better way than a lending library?
We want to make it known that our voices are important. We want to see ourselves and our values in the characters we love.
Community-building
Find your “hood” with us – whether you’re looking to reconnect with your childhood, sisterhood, or brotherhood. Join us in a game night, puzzles and coffee, book club, and more. Tell us what you need, and we will build the community together.
new Experiences
Through games, contests, and recommendations, we’d love for you to explore beyond your comfort zone.
Here, we want to help every member be comfortable, share, socialize, and find a safe space with books in one hand and courage in the other.
Reading
We want to foster the love of reading by helping you find, interact with, and respect books. From the intrinsic role of reading and scholarship in our faith to the human need for story-telling, we are simply another page in this chapter of our collective history of books.
Writing
If the oceans were ink…There are so many more words for us to share through our various skills and careers. We want to help each other value writing in all its forms.
We want to allow creativity to flow like rivers connecting our communities. We want to give everyone the opportunity to learn how to raise the level of their writing and make waves.
Future-Ready
Reading will open doors to new worlds. Reading doesn’t just improve test scores. We’d love to share tricks and tips and ways to build life skills, all through reading and our community resources. Join us in our ventures to learn these skills.
